Page 139 of Happy After All

“Losing them is,” he says. “It’s so bad. It tears you in half. Amelia, I can’t ... I’m in an impossible situation because if I walk away from you right now, if I never see you again, at least the grief won’t be final. But it will be grief all the same, and I’m so tired of it. I am so goddamned tired.”

I stand up slowly and walk around to the other side of the counter. “Then maybe try being happy. Why don’t we try that?” I raise my hands and bracket his face. His dear, familiar face. I see those lines, all that pain. I want to make new lines on his face. From smiling. From laughing. From loving me. “I love you. Idoknow what it feels like to love and have it taken from you. It’s not the same. I also know how expensive hope is, Nathan, I do.”

“It’s too much,” he says, his voice gritty.

“Yes. It is. So you can go back home. You can go sit in your office, and you can know what will happen every day for the rest of your life.However long it is. Or we could do this. You and me. I told you I don’t need anything other than just the reassurance that I’ll see you again.”

I find myself being lifted off the floor, enveloped by his arms, and then he’s kissing me.

And it is magical. It is beautiful. It is hope.

It is everything.

“No,” he says. “That’s the thing. I knew. I knew that it was never just a possibility with you. It was inevitable. It could be everything. That’s why it terrifies me.” He closes his eyes. “I love Sarah very much, but it’s been three years. Grieving is comforting. Because it keeps you safe.” It is the exact same revelation I had. I’m glad he’s had it too. “If I let it go, if I accept what happened, then I have to ... open myself up again, and that’s terrifying.”

“Yes. Hope is terrifying. What else do we have? You said it yourself, when you were talking to Albert about romance novels. The work that goes into a happy ending is the hardest work. The world doesn’t value it. The work to be in love, the work to be happy. It’s the hardest work, but I’m willing to do it. I have never felt this way before.”

“Neither have I. I’m going to try to explain it in a way that makes sense because I know ... She was the love of my life.Thatlife. Not this one. This one—the one where I’m a difficult, closed-off, hopeful, wounded man—in this one, it’s you. It could onlyeverbe you.” He tilts my chin upward, and my gaze meets his. “You are the only woman for the man I am now.” He pauses. “That day you read the memoir ... You understand me, Amelia. You don’t just accept me. No matter which world, which life we’re talking about, I’ve never experienced that before.”

I’m warmed by this, all the way through. It’s true for me too, I realize. It’s not just acceptance, but a deep understanding and appreciation. We’ve both lost. We both used creativity to get us through. We both need creativity.

“You are not second in any way,” he says. “I was dying. Slowly but surely. Everything that was good about life was gone for me. My onlypurpose was writing that damn book for her, and you ... We can get married. We can write books together. We can ... we can try to have kids. If you want.”

“I want everything. I want to hope for everything, and I will love you no matter what.”

I realize that there are logistics. That he has a house in Washington. I live here and ...

“We’ll have to hire someone to work here,” he says. “Because I’m selfish and I’m going to want to bring you back to Bainbridge Island sometimes, but I want to live here with you. Most of the life I have left there hasn’t been great. Though I would love to bring you there. Show it to you. I would love for there to be something happier there for me.”

“It’s a deal.”

Here was a man who had been so badly hurt, willing to give up everything for me. I can hardly believe it.

I wanted to believe happy endings were real. I needed to. I wrote about them even when everything seemed lost. When my whole life was a dark moment I couldn’t see the end of.

I kept dreaming.

It’s finally my turn to have it. All because of the man in room 32.

All because he was brave enough to push through to the happily ever after.

Some people say happy endings are the easy way out. That they’re trite or cliché. That tragedy is what adds value to film or literature. Nathan and I know how wrong that is.

We choose joy. We choose each other. We choose to live.

That’s what a happy ending is.

Epilogue

The Happily Ever After (HEA)—a core tenet of the romance genre. The reader can be assured that no matter how difficult the journey is, the protagonists end up together.

Everything is pink.

The balloons that are fashioned in an arc over the pool, the wild, flowery scene projected onto the dive-in movie screen, the plastic flamingos placed around the lawn, and my dress.

When Nathan and I decided to get married, we knew it had to be here.

When, after reading his very first romance novel (not mine) and weeping like a child, Albert offered to marry us, I knew it had to be him.

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